Cans which are used as closed vessels for containing soft drinks, water, beer, and the like are typically made of a container body which is a unitary drawn open ended body. A top is sealingly mounted on the open end of the body to complete the can. The top contains an apparatus for opening the can to access the contents thereof. The container body is generally made of an easily drawable material such as an aluminum alloy. Typically a slug is stamped out of the aluminum alloy sheet. The slug is positioned over a mandrel and the slug is then drawn on the mandrel utilizing oil and water as a lubricant in the drawing process to produce a lightweight unitary body. Once the body is formed, the body is cut at the open end to insure that all of the container bodies have a uniform height for the packaging process and the addition of the top. Inasmuch as the bodies are drawn with oil and water used as a lubricant, the formed bodies must be washed to clean the bodies to make them acceptable for receipt of products to be consumed by humans. The washers for the formed bodies are located at a raised location in typical can operation. An ordinary distance from the site for formation of the bodies to the washer is approximately 24 feet requiring the bodies to be raised to the washer. The apparatus heretofore used for raising the bodies is a vacuum system. The bodies with the closed end uppermost are moved to a conveyor where air pressure is reduced so that the closed ends of the container bodies are held onto the conveyor. The conveyor raises the container bodies to the washer. Inasmuch as a normal production of container bodies may be approximately 1,600 container bodies per minute, it is apparent that the container bodies must move quickly and a large quantity of air is required to hold the container bodies onto the conveyor.
The flow of air which holds the container bodies onto the conveyor also removes lubricating oil and water from the container bodies. A separate air treating system is required to collect the oil and water rather than discharge the oil and water into the atmosphere. The capital cost of the air treating system and the operation of the necessary blowers for the conveyor and the air treating system is expensive, in that, they consume a considerable amount of energy in the operation of all of the air handling equipment.